I'm sick of talking Zimmerman/Martin, but still find myself getting hooked into FB discussions and the like.
Oh, well... while today's first newsbite is "about" the case, it's really more about legal ethics in general than the case. Our legal system is seriously screwed up, folks, and I say this not just from "study" but from personal experience!
(*WRY CHUCKLE*)
Meanwhile... let's see if today we can get back to "regular" newsbiting.
10 comments:
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://nationalreview.com/article/353633/angela-coreys-checkered-past-ian-tuttle
In June 2012, Alan Dershowitz, a well-known defense attorney who has been a professor at Harvard Law School for nearly half a century, criticized Florida state attorney (Fourth Judicial Circuit) Angela Corey for her affidavit in the Zimmerman case.
Making use of a quirk of Florida law that gives prosecutors for any case except first-degree murder the option of filing an affidavit with the judge instead of going to a grand jury, Corey filed an affidavit that, according to Dershowitz, “willfully and deliberately omitted” crucial exculpatory evidence: namely, that Trayvon Martin was beating George Zimmerman bloody at the time of the fatal gunshot.
So Corey avoided a grand jury - where her case likely would not have held water - and then withheld evidence in her affidavit to the judge.
“It was a perjurious affidavit,” Dershowitz tells me, and that comes with serious consequences: “Submitting a false affidavit is grounds for disbarment.”
Shortly after Dershowitz’s criticisms, Harvard Law School’s dean’s office received a phone call. When the dean refused to pick up, Angela Corey spent a half hour demanding of an office-of-communications employee that Dershowitz be fired. According to Dershowitz, Corey threatened to sue Harvard, to try to get him disbarred, and also to sue him for slander and libel. Corey also told the communications employee that she had assigned a state investigator — an employee of the State of Florida, that is — to investigate Dershowitz.
“That’s an abuse of office right there,” Dershowitz says.
What happened in the weeks and months that followed was instructive. Dershowitz says that he was flooded with correspondence from people telling him that this is Corey’s well-known M.O. He says numerous sources — lawyers who had sparred with Corey in the courtroom, lawyers who had worked with and for her, and even multiple judges — informed him that Corey has a history of vigorously attacking any and all who criticize her. But it’s worse than that: correspondents told him that Corey has a history of overcharging and withholding evidence.
The Zimmerman trial is a clear case of the former and a probable case of the latter.
Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder, also known as “depraved mind” murder. The case law for that charge...is near-unanimous: It almost never applies to one-on-one encounters.
Second-degree murder is the madman who fires indiscriminately into a crowd or unlocks the lions’ cage at the zoo.
There was no evidence of any crime, much less second-degree murder; but that did not stop Corey from zealously overcharging, and — the facts suggest — withholding evidence to ensure that that charge stuck.
Still, by the end of the case it was clear that the jury was unlikely to convict Zimmerman of second-degree murder; hence the prosecution’s addition of a manslaughter charge — as well as its attempt to add a charge for third-degree murder by way of child abuse — after the trial had closed.
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
“In 50 years of practice I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Dershowitz. It’s a permissible maneuver, but as a matter of professional ethics it’s a low blow.
* WHICH LEADS TO THE GREATER QUESTION: IF IT'S A LOW BLOW... BENEATH PROFESSIONAL ETHICS... WHY IS IT A PERMISSIBLE MANEUVER?
Corey’s post-trial performance has been less than admirable as well. Asked in a prime-time interview with HLN how she would describe George Zimmerman, Corey responded, “Murderer.” Attorneys who spoke with me called her refusal to acknowledge the validity of the jury’s verdict everything from “disgusting” to “disgraceful.”
* WELL... I WOULD HAVE ANSWERED "A GUY WHO GOT AWAY WITH MURDER" HAD I BEEN HER... BUT BOTTOM LINE I'M NOT TOO UPSET BY HER COMMENT.
But will Corey ever be disciplined for prosecutorial abuses? It’s unlikely. State attorneys cannot be brought before the bar while they remain in office. Complaints can be filed against Corey, but they will be deferred until she is no longer state attorney. The governor can remove her from office, but otherwise her position — and her license — are safe.
* NOT SURE HOW I FEEL ABOUT THIS... (PRAGMATICALLY, I CAN SEE THE REASONING BEHIND SUCH PROTECTIONS THOUGH!)
Meanwhile, those who speak out against her continue to be mistreated. Ben Kruidbosthe IT director at Corey’s state-attorney office, was fired last week — one month after testifying during the Zimmerman trial that Corey had withheld from defense attorneys evidence obtained from Trayvon Martin’s cell phone. Corey’s office contends that Kruidbos was fired for poor job performance and for leaking personnel records. The termination notice delivered to Kruidbos last Friday read: “You have proven to be completely untrustworthy. Because of your deliberate, willful and unscrupulous actions, you can never again be trusted to step foot in this office.” Less than two months before this letter, Kruidbos had received a raise for “meritorious performance.”
* THIS SHOULD BE ENOUGH TO SINK COREY. ("SHOULD" BEING THE OPERATIVE WORD.)
The records in question — Kruidbos maintains he had nothing to do with leaking them — revealed that Corey used $235,000 in taxpayer money to upgrade her pension...
* SCUMBAG!
...and that of her co-prosecutor in the Zimmerman case, Bernie de la Rionda. The upgrade was legal, but Harry Shorstein, Corey’s predecessor, had said previously that using taxpayer funds to upgrade pensions was not “proper.”
* AGAIN... IF SOMETHING IS "IMPROPER" THEN WHY IS IT LEGAL? (SOMETHING LIKE PADDING ONE'S PENSION IN THE MANNER COREY DID...)
Meanwhile, while Kruidbos has been forced out of the state attorney’s office, the managing director who wrote his termination letter — one Cheryl Peek — remains. In 1990 Peek was fired from the same state attorney’s office by Harry Shorstein’s predecessor, Ed Austin, for jury manipulation.
* GEEZUS...
Now, as managing director for that office, she trains lawyers in professional ethics.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Since her election, Corey seems to be determinedly purging from the ranks any who cross her and surrounding herself with inferiors whose ethical scruples appear to mirror her own. Meanwhile, those she chooses to victimize — most recently, George Zimmerman — far too often have little recourse.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-76571135/
A high-powered rifle "lost" in the ATF’s Fast and Furious controversy was used to kill a Mexican police chief in the state of Jalisco earlier this year, according to internal Department of Justice records, suggesting that weapons from the failed gun-tracking operation have now made it into the hands of violent drug cartels deep inside Mexico.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Luis Lucio Rosales Astorga, the police chief in the city of Hostotipaquillo, was shot to death Jan. 29 when gunmen intercepted his patrol car and opened fire. Also killed was one of his bodyguards. His wife and a second bodyguard were wounded.
Local authorities said eight suspects in their 20s and 30s were arrested after police seized them nearby with a cache of weapons — rifles, grenades, handguns, helmets, bulletproof vests, uniforms and special communications equipment. The area is a hot zone for rival drug gangs, with members of three cartels fighting over turf in the region.
A semi-automatic WASR rifle, the firearm that killed the chief, was traced back to the Lone Wolf Trading Company, a gun store in Glendale, Ariz. The notation on the Department of Justice trace records said the WASR was used in a “HOMICIDE – WILLFUL – KILL –PUB OFF –GUN” –ATF code for “Homicide, Willful Killing of a Public Official, Gun.”
Hundreds of firearms were lost in the Fast and Furious operation.
* ONE... MORE... TIME...
Hundreds of firearms were lost in the Fast and Furious operation.
* AND, YET... HOLDER IS STILL ATTORNEY GENERAL. (THE INMATES ARE RUNNING THE ASYLUM, FOLKS...)
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed illegal purchasers to buy the firearms at the Lone Wolf store in the Phoenix suburb and other gun shops in hopes of tracing them to Mexican cartel leaders.
* WHY...?
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
The WASR used in Jalisco was purchased on Feb. 22, 2010, about three months into the Fast and Furious operation, by 26-year-old Jacob A. Montelongo of Phoenix. He later pleaded guilty to conspiracy, making false statements and smuggling goods from the United States and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
* 41 MONTHS IN PRISON...
(*MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)
Court records show Montelongo personally obtained at least 109 firearms during Fast and Furious.
* WHICH WAS EXACTLY WHAT HOLDER WANTED! THIS *WAS* OPERATION FAST AND FURIOUS!
How the WASR ended up in the state of Jalisco, which is deep in central Mexico and includes the country’s second-largest metropolis, Guadalajara, remained unclear.
* UM... PERHAPS SMUGGLED ACROSS OUR "SECURE" (ACCORDING TO OBAMA, BIG SIS, AND JOE BIDEN) BORDER...???
* FOLKS... AGAIN... THE INMATES ARE CLEARLY RUNNING THE ASYLUM AND A MAJORITY OF AMERICANS ARE PERFECTLY FINE WITH THAT!
After the shooting in Jalisco, local officials said some of the suspects confessed to two other shootouts in the area, including one that left seven people dead, all part of the continuing feud by rival cartel members.
The ATF declined to discuss the matter; officials said they are still compiling an inventory of all the lost firearms for a complete account of the Fast and Furious operation.
* STILL... AFTER HOW MANY FRIGGIN' YEARS...?
Instead of being tracked, almost all the weapons were lost as they flooded across the border into Mexico. In all, some 211 people were killed or wounded by Fast and Furious weapons in Mexico, according to Mexican authorities. And on this side of the border, a Fast and Furious weapon was found at the Arizona scene where U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was slain in 2010.
Terry’s slaying set off a number of investigations in Washington into Fast and Furious. It led to the firing or demotion of many ATF officials, including the agency’s acting director, who stepped down. It ultimately prompted the GOP-controlled House to vote Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over a number of Fast and Furious records sought by the House Oversight Committee.
* WHICH MEANT NOTHING TO HOLDER... MEANS NOTHING TO OBAMA... AND MEANS NOTHING TO MOST OF OUR FELLOW CITIZENS.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/05/ice-union-chief-chris-crane-agency-pushed-pro-amnesty-policies-during-the-2012-election-video/#ixzz2SWjijy94
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller, the head of the immigration enforcement officers union harshly criticized both Congress and the Obama administration over the “Gang of Eight” immigration bill.
National ICE Council president Chris Crane said the massive bill places little value on the opinions of experienced immigration law enforcement professionals.
In a six-part interview with TheDC, Crane explains how Congress, the Obama administration and the bipartisan group of eight senators who crafted the 867-page bill have shown no willingness to enforce immigration laws and have left ICE unable to do its job. Instead, Crane says the Senate is taking directions from powerful interest groups. “The AFL-CIO, La Raza and the Chamber of Commerce wrote this,” he says. “Law enforcement officers had absolutely no part in doing this.”
“In our opinion,” Crane says, “and I think we have been pretty outspoken on this from day one, we think that all of this is political, we know it’s political, it’s nothing but political…. I think everybody saw what happened just prior to the last election. We saw President Obama, suddenly, after doing nothing for four years, trying to come out and make these drastic changes.”
“We had people in ICE headquarters telling us that managers were coming out and saying that ‘we’ve got so many days,” he says.
“These are ICE headquarters managers in a law enforcement agency saying ‘We’ve got so many days before the election to get these pro-legalization, pro-amnesty, pro-illegal-immigrant policies out there, and we’ve got to get it done and we’ve got to get it done now.’ I mean they literally had countdowns to the election, to get these policies put in place, these policies that would be publicly favorable during the election period. So we absolutely know that this is all about politics.”
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Crane also details how, despite numerous attempts to make their concerns known to the administration and the “Gang of Eight,” law enforcement officials have been cut out of the process. In one instance Crane describes, border sheriffs and law enforcement officers from around the nation came to Washington, only to find their meetings ignored by “Gang of Eight” members.
“We don’t ever come out and say ‘well, you should restrict anybody from being within these discussions,’” Crane says. “But when Congress has illegal aliens come to Congress and testify, and then they bring groups in that represent the interests of illegal aliens to develop our laws, and they exclude American citizen law enforcement officers who work within this broken system every day, and arguably know more than anybody else about it and how to fix it. They exclude us.”
Crane also spoke about the time police threw him out of a press conference for pressing New York Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer about the bill’s far-reaching effects on law enforcement.
“I put my hand in the air and I said ‘Senator, will you take a question from law enforcement?’ And they just kinda gave me a dirty look. And they answered the question…I politely waited. I didn’t try to talk over them. I did it two or three times and I was escorted out by police. In our own — the house of the people, a Senate office building, as a United States citizen, a Federal law enforcement officer. I did nothing wrong, I talked over no one, and they had police come like I was some kind of criminal and escort me out of the building. “I had to ask ‘Am I being arrested? Am I being detained?’ They wouldn’t give me answers. They wouldn’t tell me what was happening. They were ordering to come with them. It was really out of control.”
Talking about his experience on Capitol Hill, Crane muses, “The appearance to me is something very dishonest. These folks have an agenda and they don’t want to hear from America, they think that they know better than Americans know… Where is the American part of this Republic now? Where is this ‘By the people, for the people’? There is something, I would describe as very dark, happening here that’s not what Americans want.”
http://dailycaller.com/2013/05/07/violent-criminals-released-by-ice-if-they-are-obama-dreamers-video/
“We can’t have Presidents of the United States picking and choosing which laws will and will not be enforced,” says National ICE Council president Chris Crane.
President Obama’s de facto repeal of immigration enforcement has led to serious and dangerous criminals being set free.
“What the Obama Administration has ICE agents now doing is we now go into jails and prisons looking for illegal aliens inside of those facilities who have committed and been convicted of crimes. So we apply the Dream Act not to kids, in schools, but to adult inmates and have to ask them basically ‘Do you qualify for President Obama’s Dream Act?’ When they tell us ‘Yes we qualify’ we can’t even require them to give us any kind of proof, a transcript, or anything like that. We can’t detain them for investigation to substantiate the claims, we simply have to release them to the street. They walk out the back door of the jail as ‘Dreamers.’ There is nothing we can do about that.
Crane then related a story of a man who was detained for assaulting a family member, injured two ICE officers during his arrest and, despite the serious nature of his crime, was released because ICE managers informed the arresting officers that ‘He’s an Obama Dreamer, release him.’
Crane went on to explain “No investigation, no criminal charges, no consideration of the public safety threat. He’s an Obama Dreamer, let him go, and that’s a scary situation.”
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/pentagon-spends-81k-tvs-gitmo-while-civilian-workers-are-furloughed
Just two days after the Pentagon began furloughing hundreds of thousands of civilian personnel due to budget cuts, the Army ordered its second batch of televisions for the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, an expense totaling more than $80,000 in the last two months.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
Furloughs for the Pentagon began on Monday July 9, when 650,000 civilian workers were forced to take the first of 11 days off without pay, one a week through September.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel warned just a day before the second TV purchase that sequestration will cause “serious damage” to the military.
"If the cuts continue, the Department will have to make sharp cuts with far-reaching consequences, including limiting combat power, reducing readiness and undermining the national security interests of the United States," Hagel said in a letter to the Senate Armed Forces Committee on July 10.
* AND YET...
Guantanamo Bay, however, is not cutting back. As CNSNews.com previously reported, the detention center also is looking to hire seminar instructors to teach terrorists watercolor painting, Adobe Photoshop and Arabic calligraphy, among other things.
* DEAR LORD...
In addition, the Pentagon has asked for $450 million to maintain and “upgrade” the detention facility.
* EITHER EXECUTE THE PRISONERS OR RELEASE THEM. IF THEY'RE TERRORISTS... EXECUTE THEM. IF WE CAN'T MAKE THE CASE THEY'RE TERRORISTS... RELEASE THEM. THIS ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE, FOLKS!
It is not clear whether the televisions are for the 166 terrorist detainees housed at the prison, but the Guantanamo Bay facility does have a “Detainee Library” that offers 2,415 DVDs for inmates to check out.
* NICE...
http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/craig-bannister/illegal-alien-previously-deported-11-times-arrested-drug-charges-arizona
An illegal alien who has already been deported 11 times was arrested Tuesday on charges of drug possession with intent to distribute, the office of Pinal County, AZ Sheriff Paul Babeu reported today.
* A GOVERNMENT THAT WAS SERIOUS ABOUT CONTROLLING IT'S BORDERS WOULD NEVER DEPORT SOMEONE 11 TIMES. YOU DEPORT SOMEONE ONCE. THEN IF THEY'RE CAUGHT HERE AGAIN ILLEGALLY YOU JAIL THEM FOR A YEAR AT HARD LABOR. THEN... IF THEY'RE CAUGHT A THIRD TIME... YOU EXECUTE THEM. PERIOD. END OF STORY.
Daniel Jupa-Fino and his passenger allegedly fled on foot from his vehicle (carrying 220 pounds of marijuana with at street value of $165,000) when a deputy pulled him over for a routine traffic violation. When police caught up with Jupa-Fino, he fought with them before being taken into custody.
* THE COPS SHOULD HAVE SHOT HIM DEAD FOR RESISTING.
Jupa-Fino had previously been deported 11 times, Border Patrol officials told the Pinal County sheriff's office after running a check on him.
"This is yet more dramatic evidence that our border is not secure - putting citizens and the country at needless risk. Unfortunately, the Gang of Eight's amnesty-first framework guarantees that the border will remain insecure," a GOP Senate aide told CNSNews.com. Sheriff Babeu echoed the sentiment, warning Americans of the dangers of the Senate "Gang of Eight" immigration bill: "These criminal illegals smuggled marijuana into the United States and when stopped they both fled from law enforcement. The driver of the vehicle who has already been deported 11 prior times physically fought with deputies. "Meanwhile, the Obama Administration and Gang of Eight is making plans for Green Cards and a path to citizenship for 11-20 million illegals. We must enforce the law and secure the border prior to any discussion of immigration reform."
As CNSNews.com previously reported, the Senate immigration bill as it currently stands will allow an illegal alien with two convictions "for driving under the influence or driving while intoxicated" to be granted legal status in this country. If the alien is not then convicted of a third DUI after passage of the bill and before he is naturalized, he will remain eligible to eventually become a U.S. citizen. And, even if an alien has been convicted of three or more DUIs, the bill allows the secretary of homeland security to waive the 2-DUI limit for illegal aliens seeking legalization if she believes it is "for humanitarian purposes, to ensure family unity, or if such a waiver is otherwise in the public interest."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/16/gordon-humphrey-email-edward-snowden
Former two-term GOP Senator Gordon Humphrey of New Hampshire emailed Edward Snowden yesterday:
Mr. Snowden,
Provided you have not leaked information that would put in harm's way any intelligence agent, I believe you have done the right thing in exposing what I regard as massive violation of the United States Constitution.
Having served in the United States Senate for twelve years as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee and the Judiciary Committee, I think I have a good grounding to reach my conclusion.
I wish you well in your efforts to secure asylum and encourage you to persevere.
Kindly acknowledge this message, so that I will know it reached you.
Regards,
Gordon J. Humphrey
Former United States Senator
New Hampshire
* WOW... JUST STUMBLED UPON THIS... VIA THE UK GUARDIAN...
After I contacted Sen. Humphrey to confirm its authenticity, he wrote to me:
Mr. Greenwald,
Yes. It was I who sent the email message to Edward Snowden, thanking him for exposing astonishing violations of the US Constitution and encouraging him to persevere in the search for asylum.
To my knowledge, Mr. Snowden has disclosed only the existence of a program and not details that would place any person in harm's way. I regard him as a courageous whistle-blower.
I object to the monumentally disproportionate campaign being waged by the U.S. Government against Edward Snowden, while no effort is being made to identify, remove from office and bring to justice those officials who have abused power, seriously and repeatedly violating the Constitution of the United States and the rights of millions of unsuspecting citizens.
Americans concerned about the growing arrogance of our government and its increasingly menacing nature should be working to help Mr. Snowden find asylum. Former Members of Congress, especially, should step forward and speak out.
Regards,
Gordon Humphrey
* AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST...
Snowden's reply to Sen. Humphrey:
Mr. Humphrey,
Thank you for your words of support. I only wish more of our lawmakers shared your principles - the actions I've taken would not have been necessary.
The media has distorted my actions and intentions to distract from the substance of Constitutional violations and instead focus on personalities. It seems they believe every modern narrative requires a bad guy. Perhaps it does. Perhaps, in such times, loving one's country means being hated by its government.
If history proves that be so, I will not shy from that hatred. I will not hesitate to wear those charges of villainy for the rest of my life as a civic duty, allowing those governing few who dared not do so themselves to use me as an excuse to right these wrongs.
My intention, which I outlined when this began, is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them. I remain committed to that. Though reporters and officials may never believe it, I have not provided any information that would harm our people - agent or not - and I have no intention to do so.
Further, no intelligence service - not even our own - has the capacity to compromise the secrets I continue to protect. While it has not been reported in the media, one of my specializations was to teach our people at DIA how to keep such information from being compromised even in the highest threat counter-intelligence environments (i.e. China).
You may rest easy knowing I cannot be coerced into revealing that information, even under torture.
With my thanks for your service to the nation we both love,
Edward Snowden
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